Rust and rot and mildew come to unused things. An empty and deserted house, how quickly it goes to decay! and an unoccupied man, how is his guard down on every side! When the will relaxes or is not stimulated, the physical powers relax also and their power to ward off disease is greatly lessened. Among men of all kinds who have retired from active life the mortality should be and doubtless is much greater than among men of the same age who stick to their lifelong occupations. Here is a farmer just died at eighty-eight who managed his farm till within a few months of his death; here is his neighbor, ten years younger, who retired to the village several years ago, now wandering about more than half demented. Oh, the blessedness of work, of life-giving and life-sustaining work! The busy man is the happy man; the idle man is the unhappy. When you feel blue and empty and disconsolate, and life seems hardly worth living, go to work with your hands,--delve, hoe, chop, saw, churn, thrash, anything to quicken the pulse and dispel the fumes. The blue devils can be hoed under in less than half an hour; ennui cannot stand the bucksaw fifteen minutes; the whole outlook may be brightened in a brief time by turning your hands to something you can do with a will. I speak from experience. A few years ago I found my life beginning to stagnate; I discovered that I was losing my interest in things. I was out of sorts both physically and mentally; sleep was poor, digestion was poor, and my days began to wear too sombre a tinge. There was no good reason for it that I could perceive except that I was not well and fully occupied. I had too much leisure. What was to be done? Go to work. Get more land and become a farmer in earnest. Exchange the penholder for the crowbar and the hoe-handle. I already had a few acres of land and had been a fruitgrower in a small way; why should I not double my possessions and plant a vineyard that promised some returns? So I began to cast covetous eyes upon some land adjoining me that was for sale. I nibbled at it very shyly at first. I walked over it time after time and began to note its good points. Then I began to pace it off. I found pleasure and occupation even in this. Then I took a line and began to measure it. I measured off a pretty good slice and fancied it already my own. This tasted so good to me that I measured off a larger slice and then a still larger, till I found that nothing short of the whole field would satisfy me; I must go to the fence and take a clean strip one field broad from the road to the river.